Auden’s life has always been structured and educational – or in other words, a huge bore. She gets the best grades, studies constantly, gets treated like an adult, and basically ignores the fact that she has a peppy and pregnant new stepmom who lives at the beach with her writer dad. That is, until she gets an email with one too many exclamation marks from her stepmom, Heidi, asking her to stay for the summer in the wonderful town of Colby. Although she doesn’t know if she really wants to, in order to have an okay summer before college, Auden goes, leaving her brilliant mom alone. Since she isn’t very good at being the new girl, Auden manages to kiss the playboy of Colby, Jake, meet his recently ex-girlfriend the next day, and get a job at the same place as the ex-girlfriend and her friends – Heidi’s boutique. Over the summer, though, Auden learns how to be friends with the girls at the boutique, and she also forms a strange friendship with a fellow insomniac, Eli, Jake’s older brother. By that time she is starting to enjoy Colby and her brand new sister Thisbe. But will things start to get rough when Auden sees her old classmate Jason again? And what will happen when Auden is forced by Eli, who is starting to become more than a friend, to face her toughest challenge yet … learning how to ride a bike?
I loved this book – it was my favorite of all the Sarah Dessen books. This book includes details from The Truth About Forever, Lock and Key, and Keeping the Moon, and I really liked how Sarah Dessen did that. My favorite character was Auden because she was smart and eventually learned how to have fun. I absolutely hated Jason because he was just a school-obsessed jerk in The Truth About Forever, and he was a work-obsessed evil person in this book. If you like romance books, especially any Sarah Dessen books and The Summer I Turned Pretty, you should definitely read this one. [trh99]